


it even rains in the summertime, baby, but i'll keep you warm

by gravinnen



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6161145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravinnen/pseuds/gravinnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a story about the Enchanted soundtrack, hair masks that smell like eucalyptus and donuts. Adam works in a coffee shop with Blue and Noah. Ronan and Gansey come by maybe a little more often than necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it even rains in the summertime, baby, but i'll keep you warm

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I like, hate my life but I also don’t think it will ever make the top ten best lives in the world. Or the country. Or like, this town, probably.”  
  
A pile of pink and wet kitchen paper lands right in front of Adam on the counter and immediately starts leaking off the sides. It smells faintly like strawberry frappuccino and he quickly takes a step back just as Blue, neon-colored splatters covering the right side of her face, appears in the doorway, dragging a trash can towards the pink mess.   
  
“What even is that?” Adam asks.  
  
“Kavinsky. What’s left of him anyway.”  
  
Adam eyes the pile suspiciously. “You killed Kavinsky?”  
  
“Only in my wildest dreams.” Blue says darkly and checks her watch. “Eight thirty and I’m ready to blow this place _up_. That’s a record, even for me.”  
  
“It hasn’t been the easiest morning.”  
  
Exam week is approaching for the students of the expensive boarding school that’s relatively close to the coffee shop so all morning, handsome boys wearing expensive tracksuits and driving expensive cars have been showing up to grab an expensive coffee on their way to the library, a friend’s house or whatever other place they’ve picked to do their cramming session. Adam’s fairly sure he heard a guy mention a tutoring session on a yacht earlier this morning.  
  
Aglionby boys aren’t the easiest type of customers. Stressed out Aglionby boys could very well be the worst.  
  
“And don’t think that I believe for a second that he dropped this _accidentally_.” Blue stops cleaning up the pile just to make air quotes with her fingers. “He didn’t even offer to help clean it up. I think Kavinsky might actually be the worst person on this earth. Who even orders a strawberry frappuccino at eight thirty in the morning? Who even orders a strawberry frappuccino ever?”  
  
Adam opens his mouth to answer _Kavinsky_ but Blue shuts him up with a swift, “don’t fucking say it” and starts angrily throwing what’s left of the coffee in the trash can. She’s been particularly unpleasant to customers this morning and also, she’s wearing just the wrong shade of navy for it to still be considered black so not only is she being rude but she’s also violating the dress code. Adam would call her out on it but he’s already feeling pretty horrible from eating nothing but potatoes three days in a row and an ache just near his elbow that won’t go away.   
  
He’s not up for Blue yelling at him so instead he stays quiet and hopes their boss doesn’t decide to show up today.  
  
“A tutoring session on a yacht seems odd in March.” Adam says, trying to distract Blue.  
  
“And a tutoring session on a yacht in fucking June makes perfect sense.” Blue drops the pink paper to grab at Adam’s cheeks, her frappuccino-sticky fingers running all over the freckled skin underneath his eyes. “You look tired. Have you been sleeping at all?”  
  
“Not really.” Adam tells her honestly. He thinks about admitting to sleeping a grand total of eleven hours in the past three nights. He wonders if maybe her mom has a cure for the ache near his elbow. “I’ve been eating a lot of potatoes lately.” He says instead.  
  
“Hmm.” Blue mutters because she knows what that means. She lets go of his cheeks and brushes past him to get a mop from the cleaning cupboard.   
  
“Actually, potatoes are pretty much all I’ve eaten in the past few days.”  
  
“Hmm.” Blue says again because she knows what that means too. “I can ask my mom if she has anything for sleepless nights, if you want.”  
  
“That’d be great, yeah. Maybe something for a painful elbow too.”   
  
Blue smiles, leans on the mop so she can touch her hands to her own face to try and get the pink smudge off. It doesn’t budge. “Just a few more hours.” She sighs. “Just a few more hours.”  
  
Adam hops off the counter and folds his hands as if he’s praying. “Thank fuck for that, too.”   
  
“If you’re done, some help would be great!” Noah calls out to them. He sticks his head out from behind the door that connects the front of the shop to the back of it. “I’ve never seen so many Lacoste polos in my life. And I _go_ to Aglionby.”   
  
Adam looks pleadingly at Blue but she gestures to the trash can. “Sorry, I have to finish cleaning up Kavinsky.”  
  
“You really have to stop saying that.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”  
  
Together they push the trash can back against the wall so Blue can start mopping the floor. Just before Adam’s about to leave the backroom, Blue awkwardly reaches out to grab his wrist in-between her thumb and forefinger. “You’re okay, you know.” She says. “You’re okay.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Living alone isn’t so bad, Adam thinks as he cuts up cold potatoes for the fourth night that week in his tiny apartment above the church. He definitely cries a little more than in most of the moving out fantasies he’d had as a fifteen-year-old but at least now he can listen to early Madonna albums without having to worry about his parents hearing and he’s mostly happy about that.   
  
Every month Adam allows himself a little luxury to keep morale up and that’s something that works too. In February it had been a very expensive candle from Anthropology that smells like pears and this month it had been a hair mask from a French brand he doesn’t know how to pronounce. He always feels very sophisticated when he lights the candle for twenty minutes every two days and his hair is definitely looking a little shinier than before and he thinks, surely, those must be signs that he’s made the right decision to move out.  
  
He works in the coffee shop a few blocks away from his apartment on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sunday afternoons and then in the local book store just on the end of his street every other Saturday. He makes enough money to pay the rent and food and sometimes clothes and he can’t complain about that. Blue works there too because she’s saving up for an internship that can only be done somewhere in South America and they’re not friends yet but Adam thinks they are definitely on their way to a friendship. He’d invited her over for dinner for the first time a few weeks ago and it had been fun.  
  
Noah works only on Sundays and Mondays. He’s clearly very rich and clearly very lonely and mostly works in the coffee shop to support his asshole boyfriend who’s dad went to prison. Adam likes Noah a lot but he’s very distant, in a lot of different ways and doesn’t seem to really ever let anyone in. He doesn’t know anything about his boyfriend except that Noah shows up to work with puffy eyes sometimes and they’re friendly enough that this upsets Adam.  
  
The hardest thing is eating dinner by himself so his evenings are mostly spent on trying to simultaneously eat pasta and look for links that aren’t adverts for online games or sex websites so he can watch Friday Night Lights on an old, dingy laptop he bought from his first two pay checks. Adam’s fairly sure he has at least three different types of viruses on his computer now and he can’t find a link to the fifth episode of the third season on any of his regular websites but at least it’s better than crying into his food and contemplating his existence.  
  
Mostly he’s tired. He’s tired of worrying about if he’s used too many tomatoes in his salad. He’s tired of never being quite full. He’s tired of feeling guilty for buying eucalyptus-scented hair masks instead of food even though he knows he needs it to feel like himself, to feel like he’s real, somehow. He’s tired of watching The Holiday for the sixth time that week because that’s one of the only two movies he has on DVD.  
  
Adam feels scared often too. He’s scared that this will be it, for the rest of his life. He keeps telling himself that he’s still going to college, that this is just a break to save up some money and get back on his feet after cutting off all contact with his family but sometimes he wakes up from a dream where he’s fifty and still working in a coffee shop, still taking the longer way home just so he won’t run into his parents, still wearing that same old grey sweater with the hole near the thumb and it’s hard to snap out of it then.  
  
Adam is almost sure he feels happier now that he’s not only out but also _out_ but there’s always that nagging voice in the back of his mind that keeps wondering if he’s made the right decision. Usually turning up India Arie and thinking about meditating and calming breaths tunes out this voice but lately it’s been very loud.  
  
And Adam is so tired.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Three days later the coffee machine breaks in the shop breaks and that’s not ideal. Adam’s just in the back, cooling off from being on his feet since six thirty in the morning and hearing abuse from boys who’s faces he dreams about sometimes, when Noah’s voice appears from somewhere close to Adam’s shoulders.  
  
“Adam.” Noah says, grabbing onto Adam’s still painful elbow, his eyes wide. Adam gasps, takes a step back to clutch a hand to his chest. Noah always seems to appear out of nowhere, somehow. It scares the hell out of all them. “Adam, I think I might have broken the coffee machine.”  
  
“Noah.” Adam can’t keep the irritation out of his voice even though he tries. It’s just that he can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with his elbow and a guy with a terrible haircut had yelled at him for no reason at all only five minutes ago and he’d needed a minute. Adam takes a breath.  
  
There’s really no worse time for the coffee machine to break than just before school starts and he’s not feeling up for trying to fix it with a long line of people waiting for their coffees and complaining loudly at him.  
  
“Are you completely sure it’s broken?” He asks.  
  
“I mean are we ever completely sure of anything in this life?” Noah pulls at Adam’s sleeve, always standing just a little too close. “But yeah, I’m like eighty-five percent sure it is and there’s customers waiting.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“ _Adam_.” Noah says urgently.  
  
“Fine, fine. I’ll take a look.”  
  
Staring determinedly at the coffee machine ahead of him and not at the people waiting, Adam shuffles towards the front of the shop. He smashes a hand against the machine in what he hopes is a subtle move. For some reason, he still hasn’t gotten around to telling Noah that his way of fixing the coffee maker is very similar to his method for getting the WIFI to work again; pressing random buttons and hoping it won’t explode.  
  
The machine beeps in a way that makes Adam feel hopeful as he scratches absent-mindedly at a coffee stain with the end of his apron. “Sorry about the wait.” He mumbles, trying to keep his eyes on the machine and touching a light that should be green but is orange.   
  
“Couldn’t be less of a problem.” A familiar voice tells him brightly.  
  
The voice makes Adam look up from the coffee maker and when he does, he sees two of his regular customers standing behind it. Two boys, both students at Aglionby without a shadow of a doubt, who started coming to the shop about a month and a half ago. Adam recognizes them now, in a way he doesn’t recognize most of his other customers. He feels his cheeks heat up a little and a familiar flutter settles in the pit of his stomach. He breathes through his nose.  
  
One of the guys is called either Ronan or Lynch and he is tall and beautiful and smells mostly like beer. The other one seems to respond to Gansey and he is surprisingly short but handsome too, and he smells mostly like money.  
  
“Morning.” Adam says.  
  
“Good morning.”  
  
The short one is always polite, almost annoyingly enthusiastic, and pretty much the only person Adam knows that says ‘that’s super’ without any kind of irony but _with_ a slight British accent. Pretty-sure-it’s-Ronan never really says anything at all. He mostly just manages to look bored and angry at the same time and that’s something Adam both respects and is really, really into. For some reason, he feels like Blue and the tall guy would really get along.  
  
“It seems to work fine, Noah.” He calls out to the back, as the machine starts spewing out a brown liquid that at looks a little water-y but smells sort of like coffee.  
  
“That is just so weird.” Noah says, sticking his head out from behind the door. He looks pensive. “I swear it didn’t work when I tried. It’s like the iPad all over again — only ever seems to respond to someone else’s touch. Anyway, I’ve started cleaning up the back and would really like to finish that up, would be great if you could just take care of these handsome fellas.” He blows an air kiss to the short guy, who catches it graciously without even looking up from his phone and presses it to his heart. “Thanks so much, Adam.”  
  
“Right.” Adam says, feeling the skin of his neck heat up a little. “What can I get for you? We have a really great new Spring blend. It tastes like raspberries. You should try it.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No, _thank you_ , just my regular order, _please_ , is what Ronan means to say.” The short one says pointedly, before adding, “But I’d love to try your new Spring blend. Did you design it yourself?”  
  
“Uh.” Adam takes in the guy’s earnest expression. It’s not the first time he’s asked Adam an obnoxious question like this. “I just follow the recipes we get from head office.”  
  
He seems very surprised by this but says without missing a beat, “Amazing!”  
  
Adam nods like he agrees because they’re his customers and that’s what he’s supposed to do and goes about making their coffees. He pays a lot more attention to the process than he usually would but there’s just something about the angry guy that makes him want to try a little bit harder. He’s not sure if it’s the navy uniform he wears so confidently like it was made specifically for him or the leather wallet that sticks out so casually from his back pocket like worrying about it getting stolen wouldn’t ever occur to him but it’s very exhausting.  
  
With warm milk, Adam draws a heart in the coffee for almost-completly-confident-it’s-Ronan and a flower in the latte for the short boy. “There you go.” He hands over the cup and then adds brightly, “Be careful, they’re hot!”  
  
Can’t-be-anything-else-but-Ronan stares at him for a few seconds, his expression sour like he’s just seen something he doesn’t ever want to be reminded of. “It’s _coffee_.”  
  
The short boy sighs and takes a sip. His smile is sweet but slightly patronizing when he drops three times the price of the coffees on the counter and tells Adam, “That truly does taste like Spring in a cup.”  
  
The door is slammed shut with a loud bang and without even waiting for his friend, most-definitely-Ronan has disappeared. It takes Adam half an hour before he realizes that those uniforms are very probably specifically made for him and an hour to convince himself that he definitely doesn’t have a huge crush.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“That tall guy from earlier is not bad looking.” Noah says casually, later that evening. He’s got his head stuck in the cupboard underneath the coffee machine to check if there’s something he can do to fix it and it makes his voice sound hollow and very far away like, almost it’s coming from another dimension. It is weirding Adam out a little bit.  
  
“I guess.”   
  
“I’ve seen him skulking around at school, him and that tiny sidekick of his. If you’re into angry-looking bald dudes, he’s great.” Noah sighs from inside the cupboard. “There’s definitely something stuck in there.”  
  
“Let’s just hope it’s not Kavinsky.” Adam says noncommittally, thinking about the hole in his shoes and wondering if he is into angry-looking bald guys. Probably. Definitely.  
  
“I made out with a bald guy once. I have to say, Adam, it wasn’t great.”

“Okay.”  
  
“I’m not saying it was terrible but definitely below average. Like, quite far below, I’m thinking. But who’s to say this goes for all bald guys, right? Or angry guys, for that matter.”  
  
“Right.”

“Is this like — hand me that screwdriver, please — something you’re not comfortable talking about yet?”  
  
“I don’t know. I’m not uncomfortable with it, I guess, I just don’t really know how to talk about shit like this. I am not used to being, um, you know, open about it.” Adam stares at his nails. “I don’t think I even know what type of guys I’m into yet, except for like, that one guy from One Direction.”  
  
“Who? Harry?”   
  
“No, man… Zayn.”  
  
“He was definitely bald at some point, I think. And probably angry too.” Noah’s quiet for a few second. “But I’m fairly he’s not even in One Direction anymore.” There’s a pause and Adam hopes Noah will say something profound and wise that will clear up every last of his worries about coming out and being out and liking angry guys that come by to get coffee sometimes but instead he says,  “Are _any_ of them still in One Direction? They say it’s only a hiatus but — so did NSYNC. ”

“Weren’t you like, five when they broke up? How do you even remember stuff like that?”  
  
“They’re not broken up, Adam, officially they’re still on a hiatus. And anyway, I’m just saying. I’ve seen this pattern before. There is always that one who thinks he has what it takes to go solo. Really sad for the guys that get left behind, I think.” Noah gets up to grab a flashlight from the counter. “But seriously, if you ever do need someone to talk to about this—” He clicks on the flashlight so his face is lit up like he’s about to tell a ghost story “—I’m always here to shine a light on things.”  
  
“Thanks.”   
  
They work in silence for a while; Noah lying beneath the coffee machine and Adam cleaning up some of the counters and eating a muffin that Noah had handed over to him earlier with a, “dessert. For you.” He had only taken it because he knew they were going to be thrown out otherwise anyway.  
  
Adam used to think he was only into girls for a really long time. Then, he used to think he was only into guys but lately he’s not sure about anything anymore. He’d like a steady boyfriend, he supposes, but then he wouldn’t mind a steady girlfriend either. He thinks about tattoos and guesses he’s into that too, maybe.  
  
“I guess you could say I am into bald dudes.” Adam says, then. “And tattoos.”  
  
“Cool. Cool.”   
  
It’s all Noah says but for some reason, it feels like enough.   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Adam spots the tall guy from the coffee shop when he’s working his weekly shift in the bookstore two weeks later. He’s wearing dark jeans that look brand new and a pair of maroon-colored suede sneakers that Adam’s been lusting over for months. He had been saving up for them and he’d only needed a little more money when something weird and smelly had started growing in his bathroom and he’d had to spend most of it on trying to get rid of it.  
  
It still isn’t completely gone and Adam has to shower at a weird angle to keep from touching it but at least it doesn’t smell as bad as it did anymore.   
  
It takes a while for Ronan to notice Adam, but when he does he looks positively taken aback. Adam thinks that at least means he’s being recognized and allows himself to feel just a little bit flattered. Sometimes it is good to know that he is not always just another Henrietta face in the crowd.  
  
“Hey.” Adam says because it’s the polite thing to do and also because he wants to. He briefly admires the cover of the last book he has to put away in the history section in what he hopes a casual but attractive fashion. Then, he turns to the guy who’s now taken to looking fairly upset. “It’s Ronan, right?” He tries.  
  
Ronan doesn’t immediately respond. Then mutters through clenched teeth, “Are you stalking me?”  
  
The sad thing is, Adam isn’t even taken aback by this reaction, really. He’s worked too many hours in the coffeeshop, serving Aglionby boys to be shocked by such a response. He sighs. The bookstore is his sanctuary and he’s not mentally equipped to handle beautiful boys being mean to him today. Adam is already spending more time than he wishes to admit on wondering why Ronan from the coffeeshop — and from the bookstore now, he supposes — doesn’t seem to like him enough to even pretend to be polite to him for just the one minute it takes to ask for and receive his order and he’s not up for it now.  
  
“I work here.” Adam says, clipped and he walks away. Damn customer service and damn Ronan too.   
  
He busies himself with checking orders and explaining to another customer that no, he has no idea when the new Game of Thrones installments comes out either until Ronan appears at the till about fifteen minutes later. He looks just a little apologetic which is something Adam can appreciate. It’s a good look on him. “I thought you worked at the coffee place.” He hands Adam a book with Latin translations like it’s a peace offering. “And yeah, it’s Ronan.”  
  
“Figured it would be either Ronan or Lynch, your small friend yells it so often. I work at the coffee place too.” Adam explains coolly, taking the book. “And then the book store every other week.”  
  
“Lynch is, um, my last name. And that sounds intense.”  
  
“Yeah.” He scans the book. “It’s not so bad though. Sometimes I get to take books home with me, if they’re like, a little bit damaged or whatever. I’ve read more in the past year than in all of the seventeen years before put together. And I mean, free coffee is always great.”  
  
“Hmm.” Ronan pushes up the sleeves of his sweater, revealing a stack of leather bracelets encircling his wrist. “What kind of books are you into?”  
  
“Uh. Well, I like biographies; American presidents, English royalty, that kind of stuff. Historical fiction too, but I’ve also been really enjoying more contemporary novels lately. You?”  
  
Ronan points to the book on the counter. “Just Latin translations. Do you ever accidentally spill coffee on the books you really want to read?”  
  
“If I told you, I would have to kill you.” Adam says when Ronan places some money on the counter, warming a little to the small talk Ronan’s attempting. “I like your shoes.”   
  
“Thanks, man. I like yours too.”  
  
Adam looks down at his own dirty black converse that he’s had for about five years and wiggles his toes in them. There’s a drop of dried up blood on the side from when he had had a nosebleed and mud caked to the bottoms of the shoes.   
  
“Right.” He says, stretching out the vowels, the word curling around his tongue. Working in the book shop always makes him sound very Henrietta. He guesses it has to do with all the old ladies coming into the bookstore and somehow always tricking him into spending half an hour talking about what he really thinks about Frodo wanting to keep the ring.  
  
“I’m serious. They’re a classic.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“That’s okay.” Ronan puts the book in the army green backpack that’s slung over one of his shoulders and waits around for a split second like he’s about to say something else. Then, he shakes his head and mutters, “See you later.” It sounds almost like a question.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“Adam.” Blue says the next Friday he sees her. It’s still busy in the coffee shop but decidedly less busy than usual and now that it’s ten o’clock and the morning rush has somewhat stopped, Adam has finally found the time to sit down on one of the counters and close his eyes for just a few seconds. “Adam, Adam, Adam.” That is, until Blue put her cold hands flat on his cheeks and started whispering threateningly into his ear.  
  
Adam tries to make a run for it but Noah appears to his right side, grabbing his arm lightly and muttering uncharacteristically gravely, “Just listen to her, will you?”  
  
“Adam.” Blue repeats. She let’s go of his face and crosses her arms over her chest. “Will you please stop refusing tips?”  
  
Adam sighs, leans his head back against the wall. “Not this again.”  
  
“ _Yes_ this again!” Blue says. “You work in a coffee shop! Tips make this job bearable! Tips get me to South America! Tips are great! Tips are necessary. Stop. Refusing. _Tips_.”  
  
“It’s just the way they do it.” Adam complains. He thinks about the sly smiles of the boys with too much money and too much time and too much of everything. How it’s so clear that they pity him and that they look down on him and how nothing could ever feel so wrong as taking money from them. He touches his apron. “Don’t tell me you feel comfortable with Kavinsky paying for your ticket to South America.”  
  
“Adam, explain to me, please, why on earth I would be thinking about Kavinsky when I’m on a plane to the only place on earth I want to be? I can’t actually imagine thinking about anything less than  _Kavinsky_.”  
  
“ _He orders strawberry frappuccinos_.”  
  
“While that is true and super dumb, I’m really not arguing about this with you, kiddo.” Blue has the same look in her eyes as when she’d answered a boy she’d been kind of dating on and off for a while with _thanks_ after he’d told her he loved her in front of Noah and Adam. Right where they could see them and hear them and everything. It had both scared and scarred him a little. “If it really bothers you that much, close your eyes and pretend they’re only tipping me and Noah. We’ll be happy to split it between just the two of us.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Right.” Blue repeats after him, then looks back to the front of the shop. “There are customers waiting. Customers who tip! _Engage_ them.”  
  
Noah let’s go of Adam’s arm to take a quick look at who’s standing in line, then claps his hands together. “You go, Adam, fly! Fly and practice!”  
  
Blue manages to yell a ‘stop refusing tips!’ at him as he starts to walk towards the till which he thinks is very unprofessional of her but decides not to comment on.  
  
“You okay?” A voice raised in mock concern asks when Adam reaches the coffee machine. It’s Ronan. The light on the coffee machine is still orange instead of its usual green but Adam’s too tired to convince himself that it’s that what causes the nervous flutter in his stomach. “What was happening back there?”  
  
“Yeah, well, for some reason, my colleagues think I should stop refusing tips.” He says, without looking up from the machine.  
  
“No way. That’s crazy.”   
  
“I know, right?  
  
When Adam finally does look up, they stare at each other dumbly for a few seconds and only then, does Adam realize that the short guy who he’s now positive is called Gansey is standing next to Ronan.   
  
Gansey looks a little weirded out but not entirely surprised by the exchange. “Anyway.” He says, clearing his throat and casually bumping his hip into Ronan without taking his eyes off of Adam.  
  
“Yeah, um, real sorry about that.” Adam says. “What can I get for you?”  
  
“That’s okay — ” Gansey pauses to look pointedly at Adam’s name tag and then at Ronan “ — _Adam_. Frappuccino for me, please.” Adam can practically feel Blue rolling her eyes from where she’s probably listening to the conversation out back. “Chocolate.”  
  
“Just my regular order for me.” Ronan says.  
  
Adam goes about making their coffees and pretends to not notice Ronan and Gansey whispering furiously at each other. He thinks he hears his own name coming out of Gansey’s mouth just as the warm milk starts spewing loudly in the cup but he can’t be sure. He can never really be sure.   
  
He looks up just as Ronan whispers “shut the fuck up, you fucking fuck” and almost spills hot milk over his hand. Adam takes in his straight nose, his buzzed head and blue eyes, his black sweater with a picture of an angry raven on it. Looking at him makes him feel a little bit like how he felt about the lacrosse captain during high school and about Blue when he had first started working here but also different than both those times, somehow. Adam swallows and stares at the cup before handing it over to Ronan, thinks briefly about crossing out the _beverage_ and _about to enjoy_ so it just says _you’re extremely hot_ but then decides against it.   
  
“They’re hot.” He says instead.  
  
“Still fucking coffee.” Ronan says but he grimaces in a way that is not entirely agressive as he walks towards where Gansey’s already seated himself in one of the best chairs just near the window. He gets out a thin macbook and while Gansey shoots Adam a strange glance every once in a while, Ronan doesn’t look back at Adam until both of them get up to leave.

  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“So, about you shedding light on some stuff…” Adam says as he shuffles closer to where Noah’s standing behind the computer desktop just near the left of the shop, peering at his Spotify account. The shop is already long closed so they’d been busy cleaning up the mess left by a day’s worth of coffee drinkers and just generally hanging out with each other. Adam coughs, feeling awkward and a little bit desperate. “Do you think Ronan might be — uh — you know, gay. You go to school with him, right?”   
  
“Hmm.” Noah turns up the volume of the album that’s playing a little bit higher. He’s usually in charge of the music when they’re locking up and though he’s into much louder and much older stuff than both Adam and Blue, he usually takes their music taste into account and finds them something they all like. “What do you think of this album?” He mutters distractedly.   
  
“It’s great.” Adam says.  
  
“It’s not the best.” Blue turns the tip jar upside down on the counter and starts opening up folded notes and counting the small change.  
  
“Well, _excuse me_ , Blue, but first of all, nobody asked you and second of all, not all of us have the patience and will power to listen to Bjork every single day for three years.”  
  
“ — twenty-five, twenty-seven — See, Noah, I disagree with that. She is an artist and an inspiration.”  
  
“Anyway.” Adam says, touching Noah’s wrist. “Do you think Ronan might be into guys?”  
  
Noah looks up from the computer and smiles at Adam. “Sure.” He says, and then adds, “Why?”  
  
“I mean, he’s beautiful.”  
  
“Very true.”  
  
“He has the best taste in shoes.”  
  
“Can’t argue that.”  
  
“And he can be funny, sometimes.”  
  
“That’s hard to imagine but I’ll take your word for it.”  
  
“No but, seriously, do you think he might be gay?” Adam can hear the eagerness in his voice and it makes him both feel very strange and very normal, like he finally has the type of life a guy his age should have and like he is a million miles away from himself, staring down at the top of his own head.  
  
“I think we shouldn’t try to put labels on people when they’re not here to enlighten us, Adam.” Noah says. “Now if you were to ask me if I thought he was into you? Well, of course. Who isn’t?”  
  
Noah opens his mouth to say something else but Blue cuts him off with a very sudden, “Well, I don’t know about him being into boys in general either, but Noah’s definitely right about him being into you.”  
  
That makes both of them look up into her general direction. A note is stuffed in Adam’s hands and just as Brandon Flowers starts singing about being caught in a worn out dream, he reads:  
  
_Adam — could I take you out on a date?  
  
_ It’s not signed with a full name but in the corner of the note, like it wasn’t meant to be part of it in the first place, is a drawing of a raven with a speech bubble coming out of its beak that says, “I think Adam is pretty cute.”  
  
“I guess that answers your question.” Noah says as he looks over Adam’s left shoulder to read the note. He points to the initials R.L. written in another corner of the note in bold letters. “Those are his initials, right?”  
  
“That message is strangely formal.” Blue tells them over Adam’s other shoulder. “And it was stuffed inside a _twenty dollar bill_. What a waste. And risky too. I can’t decide if that’s really lame or really romantic.”  
  
“Romantic.” Noah quips.  
  
“Inside a twenty dollar bill?” Adam asks dumb-founded. He turns the note around in his hand; there’s no phone number, no e-mail address, no way for Adam to contact him. There’s not really anything he can imagine less than Ronan writing a note and putting in the tip jar but then he guesses he doesn’t know him that well anyway. And besides, here was the proof, right between his fingers.   
  
“This is great.” Noah says, almost like he can hear what is going through Adam’s mind. It’s just that this is the type of thing that would never happen to Adam in a thousand years and he has a hard time allowing himself to feel somewhat good about it.  
  
“Is it though?” Adam sighs, biting his lip, finally allowing himself to just be the tiniest bit excited. “It must be from him, right? From Ronan?”  
  
“Definitely.” Blue says. Her cheeks are red. “That’s real exciting, Adam.”  
  
“Why not just give it to me in person, though?”  
  
“He’s shy. He’s not out. He has a severe fear of blueberry muffins and can’t stand being close to them. There’s a a hundred reasons! Adam.” Noah grabs his shoulder. “Literally something straight out of The Holiday is happening to you. I won’t let you ruin this with your logic and your science and your ... _things_. Stop questioning this.”   
  
That night, Adam folds the paper up and puts it underneath his pillow. He sleeps for five consecutive hours and it feels like good luck.

  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Ronan doesn’t show up in the coffee shop or the bookshop for a week and a half after leaving the note and for some reason, that seems a little suspicious to Adam. If Adam had ever had the courage to ask someone out on a date via a note left in a tip jar, he would want to know that person’s answer as soon as possible, just to get it over with.  
  
He tries his hardest to not let the whole note-debacle worry him to much, though. Ronan’s not the strangest person he’s ever come across but definitely not the most normal one either and so he tells himself that everyone does things differently and just like Noah had said when Adam had asked him for his opinion, who is he to judge, really. Maybe he’s worried Adam will say no to him — as if — and he just needs a little bit of time to get ready to face possible rejection. Maybe he has an important test coming up and needs to spend all his time preparing for that.   
  
Adam can kind of understand that so he tries to focus on getting the mold away from his bathroom and perfecting his morning yoga routine to the upbeat albums by nineties pop stars from England Noah keeps handing him. At least he’s keeping busy.  
  
When Ronan does finally show up, Adam’s at work in the bookstore. Adam spots him before Ronan does and when he does look up at Adam, he doesn’t really seem in any hurry to get to him. Instead he takes his sweet time looking at books on Roman history and nodding his head along with the music coming out of his headphones. Adam tries to pass the time by trying to look both hot and oblivious while putting away travel books on Amsterdam and trying not to think about how his life is basically just searching for ways to pass the time.  
  
“Have you ever been?” A bored voice asks, suddenly.  
  
“To Amsterdam? Nein.”  
  
“That’s — German, I think. Not Dutch.”  
  
“Right.” Adam says, already feeling his cheeks heat up a little.   
  
“Easy mistake to make.”  
  
“Sure. And, um, no, never been.”  
  
“Shame. They have great fries there. They dip them in mayonnaise, did you know?”  
  
“I — no.” Adam says, turning around so he can look Ronan in the eye. “Hi.”  
  
“Hi.” Ronan’s grin seems sincere, if a little sly and Adam takes that as a good sign.  
  
“Looking for anything special?” He asks. Ronan shrugs, not saying anything but lingering around, instead. They awkwardly stare at each other for a few seconds, Adam thinking he looks really good in a navy sweater that’s almost black before deciding to put his money where his mouth is and be bold. Adam takes a breath, then adds, “So, I got your note.”  
  
“My note?”  
  
Adam reaches into his pocket where he’s been keeping it ever since taking it from underneath his pillow that first morning like the loser he is. Good thing he currently has only one pair of jeans without any holes in it.  
  
“Yeah — your note.” He waves the piece of paper in front of Ronan and Ronan grabs it, taking a look at it and turning it around in his hands. Adam notices a black watch around his wrist with the words Rolex written on the face of it and it makes him feel a little uncomfortable. “There wasn’t a phone number or anything so — yeah.” Adam adds vaguely.  
  
“Right. This — this is a note.”   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a note all right.” Adam stares at the watch. “And, um, I just wanted to let you know that I’m — well, interested, I guess.”  
  
Ronan doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he stares at Adam’s face as if he can find the answer there. The music that was softly playing in the store before suddenly sounds very loud. Ronan’s own expression is bitter and angry almost and it takes only a few seconds of silence for the entire situation to get profoundly awkward. Adam tries, “so, when are you free?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Ronan answers, finally.  
  
Adam swallows and tries to think about how this is not going anything like he had been imagining it for the past few days as less as possible. “Sure, um, I suppose you have to check your calendar.”  
  
“I don’t own one.”  
  
“Okay. Right. Well, Apple do a great one, I’ve heard. You can download it right to your phone.” Adam’s face gets even hotter as he rambles on. “You can even set an alarm. Okay, well, think about it, I guess.” He stares at the travel book on Amsterdam that he’s still carrying in his hands and takes a step back so he can stuff it between two books on Welsh legends just to have something to do. Not for the first time in his life Adam wishes he could chat about absolutely nothing like Noah’s so good at but instead, the silence stretches on and on.  
  
He’s just about to tell Ronan about the urgent thing he has to do on the other side of the store, outside, on a different continent with a twelve hour time difference and an ocean he can drown himself in, when Ronan finally opens his mouth. “Thursday.” He says, at last, without looking up. He sounds profoundly angry about it.  
  
“Thursday.” Adam repeats. “I can do Thursday.”  
  
“I have tennis practice in the evening but I could meet you for a cup of coffee in the afternoon.”  
  
“Working in a coffeeshop has turned me off of coffee for the rest of my life but if you could take me someplace where they have lemonade, I’m game.”  
  
Adam tries to keep it light, tries to flirt to the best of his abilities but Ronan is not having it. He coughs out a, “Sure” but it seems to physically pain him to say it.  
  
“Right.”   
  
“Okay.” Ronan finally looks up. “One. I’ll come pick you up at one.” He almost spits the words at Adam.   
  
“I live above the church, you know it?” Adam’s starting to feel very tired of trying to tell himself this is not a totally bizarre situation. “I’ll meet you out there.”    
  
“I know it.” Ronan takes a few steps back and makes a move to turn around but changes his mind at the last second. “I won’t be coming by the coffeeshop before Thursday. It’ll be awkward.”   
  
“I’ll survive.” Adam grins awkwardly. “Let’s just hope you’ll still want to come by _after_ Thursday.”  
  
Ronan looks at him over his shoulder but doesn’t smile. Instead he utters a furious, “right” and leaves the store.   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Even though Adam wants to shout from the rooftops that Ronan plays tennis and therefore must walk around in a tennis uniform sometimes, he decides against telling Blue and Noah about what went down in the bookstore. If he were to explain to them that he’s going on a date in less than five days they’d want to know how this exactly came about and Adam can’t seem to figure out what exactly he would tell them. He’d have to leave out the furious expression Ronan had had for the entirety of the conversation and the upset ‘right’ he’d uttered when leaving the shop but when he can’t tell anyone about that, there’s not much left to the story, really.  
  
So instead, he remains silent and instead obsesses internally over what to wear and what to do with his hair and going on a date with a real actual person that exists. Fortunately for him, Noah has broken up with his boyfriend for the fourth time since Adam has known him so Noah has been too distracted with humming along to the sad songs of the Enchanted soundtrack to check on Adam and Blue has been too busy muttering threats to both Noah’s boyfriend and the sad songs of the Enchanted soundtrack to notice the spring in Adam’s step.  
  
“Are you okay?” He asks Noah after he shows up with puffy eyes for the third day in a row, feeling a little guilty to ever think there’s anything fortunate about this situation and a little nervous about his upcoming date.   
  
“Yes.” Noah says without hesitating for even a second and walks away.  
  
“No.” Blue mutters when she’s sure Noah can’t hear them and hands over some teabags that both look and smell disgusting. “My mom’s. They’re supposed to help you sleep. She’s still working on the elbow thing.”   
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Blue pinches his shoulder in what he assumes is a loving gesture. “No problem. Come over for dinner next week? She’s bound to have cooked something up by then.”  
  
“Sure.”   
  
She gives him a smile, says, “You look nice” and walks away.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
As the days go by, he starts to feel less and less ready for his date. Adam’s excited about Tuesday, he supposes, but not as excited as he would be if Ronan had acted at least somewhat happy about Adam saying yes a few days earlier. It’s hard to focus on what he’s going to say when he can’t stop thinking about the horrified expression Ronan had been wearing during almost the entire conversation but as always, he takes a deep breath and moves on. He is always just moving on.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
On Tuesday, Ronan comes to pick him up right as the clock strikes one which Adam thinks is definitely a positive thing but honks loudly instead of coming up and knocking which is less great. Even with his admittedly limited dating experience, Adam’s fairly certain he quite likes for his date to at least get out of the car when coming to get him but as he steps out of the door, he understands just a little better. Adam wouldn’t want to get out of the car Ronan’s sitting in either.  
  
He mutters an aggressive ‘hi’ when Adam climbs in and then refrains from saying anything else for the entirety of the journey to — well, God knows where, really. Ronan sure has told him nothing. Instead Adam is forced to listen to someone rapping angrily in what he assumes is Russian and spends most of his time fogging up the window with his breath and drawing trees on it. It’s not going exactly like in his day dreams and it takes about five minutes for Adam to start seriously regretting ever agreeing to anything Ronan has ever said.  
  
He sticks out his pinky finger and draws a tiny bird sitting in the tree and tells himself to calm down and that really, he could’ve expected someone like Ronan needing a little bit of time to warm up to people.  
  
Adam opens his mouth to say something, anything but then decides that he’d have to yell to be heard over the music and that it’s better not to. He can give Ronan some time. He can.  
  
After about fifteen minutes that feel more like forty-five of driving into the mountains that surround Henrietta, Ronan slows down to park on the edge of a field. It’s very quiet.  
  
“Are you, um, going to murder me?” Adam asks when Ronan reaches behind him to grab the green backpack that he’s put on the backseat of the car. He tries to sound casual but just a bit of real concern edges his voice.  
  
“No.” Ronan answers and gets out of the car. He motions for Adam to do the same.   
  
“Right.” He says as he jumps out of the car. “It’s just you’ve been so quiet and then you drive to this abandoned field — easy mistake to make.”  
  
Ronan doesn’t answer, never even really acknowledges that Adam has said something. Instead, he leads Adam through the trees on the edge of the field, over a small bridge that looks pretty creepy until they reach a viewpoint that looks out over the whole of Henrietta. It would be really quite beautiful and serene if Adam wasn’t so bummed about how this date was going and so worried about being killed. Ronan sits down on a tree trunk.  
  
Adam doesn’t go to sit beside him. “I mean, who knows what’s even in that backpack of yours.”  
  
Ronan turns around at that and finally, finally looks at Adam. Staring at his beautiful face, it makes it just a bit easier to understand why he’s here. He just wishes Ronan wouldn’t look like he cannot for the life of him imagine why _he_ is.  
  
Ronan reaches inside the bag and gets out two bottles of elderflower lemonade and two straws with orange pumpkins on them. “Turns out there are literally no other places to drink coffee in Henrietta so I thought I’d improvise.” He says awkwardly.  
  
“Oh.” Adam says, thinking that’s actually a nice thing to do. He sits down next to Ronan on the tree then and gingerly takes one of the bottles and one of the Halloween-themed straws. “I love elderflower. Do you come here often?”  
  
“No.” Ronan answers but doesn’t elaborate.   
  
“Right.” He says. “So, where do you go often?”  
  
“My room, mostly. Gansey and I are working on something that I can’t tell you about and that takes up a lot of my time too. Sometimes I go to Nino’s. You know the pizzeria? They have good food there, I guess. But mostly my room.”   
  
Ronan leans back to take a sip of his lemonade as Adam waits for the inevitable ‘and what about you?’ but gives up after about two minutes. They drink their lemonade in silence. Ronan starts pulling huge chunks of grass out of the ground and Adam wants to reach out, wants to touch his arm to make Ronan stop but he stays still, quiet.  
  
“This is nice.” Adam tries, gesturing to the view that stretches out in front of them. He’s getting pretty worked up that Ronan’s not trying anything to make this date any more fun. “It’s very peaceful here.”  
  
Ronan nods absent-mindedly.  
  
“What’s your favorite animal?” Adam asks.  
  
There’s silence as Ronan peers at him. He throws the chunk of grass he just pulled out away and takes another sip before asking, “Honestly? My favorite animal? Are you going to like me any better when I say I’m not into ponies?”   
  
Adam carefully puts his lemonade down and stands calmly up from the tree trunk to brush some of the dirt of his jeans. He’s angry now and upset too but also definitely too proud to show any of it. “At least I’m trying.” He says, sounding as kind as he can possibly manage. “You now why people go on dates, right? To get to know one another. Were you planning on sitting here in silence for an hour and then calling it a day because if so, why even bother?”  
  
Ronan huffs but Adam’s getting pretty worked up now. “No, seriously, you’re clearly not interested in me so what did you even ask me out for?”  
  
Ronan grumbles something around his lemonade bottle.  
  
“Didn’t catch that.”  
  
He removes the bottle from his mouth. “I didn’t.”  
  
“You didn’t what.”  
  
“I didn’t ask you out.”  
  
Ronan has the decency to look down while he says it but it still feels like the ground is opening up beneath Adam and he’s suddenly very aware of his nails pressing into the palms of his hands. He makes an effort to relax.   
  
“But the note?” He asks, sounding as unimpressed as possible. Adam reaches into his pocket to get it but comes up empty when he realizes he’d put on the jeans with holes on the knees because he’d thought it would make him look cooler, more like someone Ronan was into. “It had your initials and everything. And a drawing of that raven you always have on your shirt.”  
  
“Yeah, well, if you want to get really technical, the paper for the note came out of my Latin notebook but um, Gansey wrote the actual note.”  
  
A terrible feeling washes over Adam and settles in the pit of his stomach, makes his knees feel heavy. He can feel his cheeks and ears heat up and his voice wobble a little. “Oh my God.” He forces himself to breathe in and out and he’s not sad, perse, but he’s angry and so, so embarrassed. “Oh no.” He reaches down to grab his lemonade, then puts it back on the ground again. The way Ronan had acted like he had never seen the note before, the total surprise when Adam had said yes. He should have known. He should've fucking known.  
  
“So, it was what — a joke? Is this like, a pity date?” Adam says, sounding slightly hysterical.  
  
Ronan is still looking down, his knuckles white from almost crushing the bottle in his hands but he sounds fierce when he says, “I would never take you on a pity date.”  
  
Adam barely registers it. “This is so embarrassing.” He babbles. “So Gansey wrote the note. Put it in the tip jar. Why would you ever agree to that?”  
  
Ronan doesn’t answer.  
  
“What a dick move.” It feels weird saying this when Ronan has been just a customer in the store where he works for so long and normally, he would have to stay polite no matter what but as his hands curl into fists once more, he can only think about how Ronan and Gansey must have laughed at him and he thinks himself so stupid to ever believe something like this would ever happen to him. Surely he has gone through enough to know that fairytales are not made for boys like him. “I want to go home.” He says.  
  
Somewhere deep, deep inside Adam, there’s a part that wishes Ronan won’t let him go. A part that hopes that Ronan will say that they got of to a bad start and if Adam would just stay a little longer, he would definitely make it up to him but Ronan doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he gets up, collects the bottles so he can throw them away in the trash can and walks Adam back to the car without uttering a word.  
  
A little past two, Adam is back in his tiny apartment, holed up underneath his blanket, thoroughly embarrassed and so very, very tired.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Adam holds out on telling Blue and Noah for three days but on Sunday, the feeling of both rejection and total embarrassment becomes too overwhelming. He hasn’t heard anything from Ronan since the disaster date and it feels like the humiliation is eating Adam up inside. He tries to keep his mouth shut, tries to refrain from burdening his friends with his problems but after the fifth sad The Feeling song that Noah plays after closing time, he breaks.  
  
“Don’t freak out but uh, I went on a date with Ronan.” He says. The two of them are cleaning up the kitchen while Blue is working on the table outside. “Please don’t look so excited. It was terrible. Turns out he didn’t even write the note himself. His little sidekick did.”  
  
Noah doesn’t say anything for a while, then, “You’re joking.” He sounds just the tiniest bit hopeful.  
  
“I wish. He had no idea what I was talking about when I told him about how I’d received his note and how I was interested. Didn’t say a word the entire date.”  
  
There’s a blissful few seconds of silence as Noah stares at Adam with a pensive look on his face. Then Blue bursts through the door into the kitchen, yelling, “Fucking excuse me.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“But how?” Noah asks but Blue is already speaking louder than Adam could ever dream of talking.  
  
He doesn’t have the energy or the will power to listen carefully to everything Blue has to say about this so instead he leans back on the broom he’s holding and let’s the rant about ‘men!’ and ‘guys!’ and ‘the patriarchy!’ wash over him. It’s nice to have someone who is always so completely unapologetically in his corner but sometimes, Adam wishes she would just listen for a moment.  
  
Blue finishes with a, “Why? Why would anyone do this to anyone ever?” but Adam still waits a few seconds with answer to make sure it’s not a rhetorical question.  
  
“I asked him that actually but he never gave me an answer. He picked me up, took me to an abandoned field and kept his mouth shut the entire time we were there so at one point I asked him why he’d bothered asking me out anyway. That’s when he told me that he actually hadn’t.”  
  
“That is just the strangest thing.” Noah has put his mop down.  
  
“It’s an asshole thing actually.” Blue is quick to tell him.  
  
“Sure, but why go if you’re not interested in someone?”  
  
“Because he’s an asshole.”  
  
“Right, okay. It just seems like such an effort to go through.”  
  
Blue and Noah look up at Adam expectantly then, waiting for him to get involved in the conversation but he just shrugs. Telling them what had happened feels like a weight has been lifted of his shoulder already and he doesn’t really need to speak about if further.  
  
“I don’t know.” He says honestly. “Maybe he thought it would make for a funny story.”  
  
Noah doesn’t look convinced. “That’s such a sweet way to prank someone though.”  
  
“Sweet?” Blue sounds outraged. She probably is. “Is this the standard now? The guy that asks you out doesn’t say a word the entire time and it’s sweet? Is this all we are allowed to expect from men these days? Silence?”  
  
“Well, actually, he’s not the guy who asked me out.” Adam says, just as Noah answers with, “That’s not what I meant.”  
  
Adam coughs. “He’d brought me lemonade. That was kind of sweet.”   
  
Blue grabs Adam’s arm, almost crushing it in the process and says, “He’s a dick and you deserve better. Don’t you forget it.” She let’s go so she can reach out to pick up a roll of kitchen towel. Just before she leaves the kitchen, Blue turns around, points the kitchen towel at Adam like she would a gun and repeats, “Don’t you forget it.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Adam’s fine with it, really. He is. Sure he had been a little upset about it for about two weeks and it had been annoying that everytime a guy in an Aglionby polo walked into either the bookstore or the coffeeshop he’d almost gotten a heart attack but he is definitely over it now. He’d even written about it in his diary a few times and he thought that was definitely one of the healthier ways he’d dealt with something.   
  
Noah and Blue had tried to amuse him with stories about their own horrible dating experience and sitting around an empty table just after closing time a week ago, talking about high school and movies and what they would do when they would finally get out of here, Adam had realized for the first time that these people were really his friends now.  
  
And good ones too, who know him so much better than any of the phony people he’d hung around with in high school and who make an effort to really meet him in the middle. Blue has talked about the patriarchy only twice and Noah has tried to talk to Adam about Ronan just one more time before quickly realizing that this wasn’t really something Adam was into. He hasn’t found the words to tell them yet but it’s just the best feeling that they know to allow him space even though the curiosity of what exactly went down must be killing them.  
  
Instead of talking to him about it, they show support in other ways. Blue’s mom had finally cooked up a cure for the ache in his elbow and Noah had hooked him up with his Netflix password so a few days ago, Adam had finally been able to watch the one episode from the third season of Friday Night Light he never could find a download link for. The weather’s warming up, too, and Adam’s happy — he’s content. He is.  
  
That is, until Ronan walks in on a very quiet Friday afternoon with a very flustered Gansey trailing behind him.   
  
Noah’s the first to spot them, kicking Adam in the shin a few times until Adam starts getting annoyed and looks up from wiping down the counter with a, “Noah, what the hell?”  
  
“Um.” Noah moves his face towards the entryway a few times, looking upset and a little stressed out.  
  
“Are you having a seizure?” Adam manages to ask before he too, spots Ronan stomping into shop. “Oh no.”   
  
Ronan’s expression is a thing of both beauty and terror and it’s enough to turn Adam’s world upside down. With the corners of his mouth tilted downwards, his nose scrunched up and his eyes so, so bright he’s not someone Adam would enjoy bumping into a dark alley and yet, definitely someone Adam would enjoy bumping into in a dark alley. These thoughts mixed with the feeling that his knees are going to give out any second, it’s all very confusing.  
  
Ronan has Gansey grabbed by his left arm and is dragging him through the empty shop to the counter while Adam desperately searches for something both clever and terrible to say but he is too distracted by the way Ronan’s tattooed thorns lick up his neck and comes up empty. Still, he opens his mouth, hoping to trick it into thinking it actually has something to say, gunning on getting through this by improvising when Blue’s voice comes up from behind him.  
  
“You’ve got insane balls showing up here.”   
  
Ronan stops in front of the three of them and pushes Gansey forward. “I do actually.” He doesn’t look so much at Blue as through Blue as he points towards his friend like he’s waving away the smell that has once again appeared in Adam’s bathroom. “This idiot’s got something to say to Adam.”  
  
Adam once more opens his mouth to speak but Blue is yet again quicker. “You’ve got three seconds.”  
  
Gansey doesn’t say anything, looks up at Blue in complete awe instead, the way he sometimes does. Ronan punches him in the stomach without taking his eyes off of Adam.   
  
“Right.” Blue claps her hands enthusiastically after the three seconds are up. “Time’s up. Go away now. See you never.”  
  
“Gansey.” Ronan growls, not moving. “Fucking speak.”  
  
That seems to wake up Gansey more than the punch did and he coughs. “Um, right.” He lifts his face towards Adam. “So. About the note — well, in an attempt to make this —” he waves vaguely between Ronan an Adam “ — happen just a little bit faster, or, um, ever, really, let’s be honest, I wrote a note. And I pretended it was Ronan asking you out on a date. And obviously that date went disastrous and Ronan behaved absolutely appalling from what I’ve heard — ” A terrifying huff from Ronan “ — which is, beside the point, really but um, I heard that you were quite upset and thought it a dick move, which is funny, actually, because people call me Dick, so it was quite literally a Dick move — ” Another awful huff “ — which is also not really relevant but yes, basically, I apologize for meddling and I promise to never do it again.”  
  
Adam’s dumbstruck really. Not only because he can’t remember the last time anyone apologized to him for anything but also because Ronan’s looking down at the ground now, scuffing at a coffee stain with his foot and looking quite upset and that’s not what he’d expected at all. The unsure expression on Ronan’s face looks out of place somehow.   
  
Still, the feeling of relief that washes over Adam is incredible and for the first time, Blue doesn’t seem to have anything to say either.  
  
“I’m really sorry.” Gansey says, a little bit quieter this time. “It really wasn’t meant like a joke or um, anything. It’s just that Ronan’s been speaking so much about you and I just thought, well. I thought it would be different.”  
  
“It’s okay.” Adam hears himself say, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest at hearing that Ronan talks about him. “I guess you didn’t have any bad intentions.”  
  
“No, definitely not. Just trying to help out a friend.”  
  
“You still shouldn’t have done it though.” Noah says and he sounds stern.   
  
“I know. I do realize that, really. I suppose I just watched Love Actually one too many times.”  
  
Ronan stops staring at the ground now, turning his face to at Adam, with a look in his eyes that Adam’s not sure what to do with. For a brief moment he allows himself to think about the possibility of trying again, of what it would be like if Ronan wasn’t just here to make Gansey apologize but also to ask him if maybe, they could give it another shot. Adam’s not someone who holds grudges; he’s slow to forget but quick to forgive and it could still be possible. This could still be possible.  
  
Gansey seems to wait for something, swaying on his feet a little as he tries to dodge a wasp that’s flown inside the store and is now buzzing around his head, “Anyway, really, truly sorry. I guess we’re going now. Have a good day.”  
  
He and Ronan start walking towards the exit as Adam tries to not feel too disappointed. It’s harder than he likes to admit. Suddenly, Ronan turns abruptly around and with long strides, walks back to the counter.  
  
“I’m sorry too.” He says. “I behaved pretty badly, um, I know that. I just — I need time, often, and Gansey’s not very good at allowing me it. I have to do things my own way or it doesn’t work.  So, yes, bye.” Just as quickly, he turns around and closes the door behind him.   
  
Blue and Noah don’t say anything, just squeeze both of his hand softly and it’s enough. It’s enough.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Five days later, Ronan strides purposefully into the bookstore. Before Adam has time to greet him, he says, “Another try? Friday afternoon? Three o’clock?”  
  
Adam can’t do much more than stammer, “Friday afternoon it is.”  
  
“I’ll come pick you up. It will be better this time, promise.” He walks back out.  
  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
  
This time it’s better. When Ronan comes to pick him up, he’s still forced to listen to Russian rap music like he’d been on their previous date but now the volume is turned down so it’s only playing softly in the background and Adam decides to take that as a good sign. Ronan greets him in a matter that’s not quite sweet but also not terribly aggressive and he’s wearing a nice shirt, asking Adam how his day was, making an effort and looking visibly more relaxed than the last time Adam had stepped into this car. He lets out a breath he’s been holding for about three days already and allows himself to relax just a little.  
  
The way Ronan tries to engage Adam into small talk about Irish folk songs and Latin verbs for about twenty minutes is a little awkward but awkward in a way first and second dates with people you don’t really know are supposed to be.   
  
He’s really quite enjoying himself when he asks, “Are you Irish?”  
  
“My dad is. Was.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Adam says but decides to not press the topic any further.  
  
They speak a little about the school Ronan goes to, a place Adam can ever only dream of attending when suddenly, he realizes they’re driving deeper into the mountains, the trees around them growing bigger and standing closer together.   
  
He leans his head forward, almost pressing his nose against the window, probably looking really attractive and says, “You’re not taking me to another creepy park again, are you?”   
  
The silence lasts a few seconds. “Um.” Ronan stares determinedly ahead but when Adam turns around he can see his knuckles turning white where he’s holding onto the steering wheel. “No?”  
  
For some reason, that makes Adam smile. “Are you, like, super into nature or something?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“It’s just that you seem pretty dedicated to showing me all the rural beauty Henrietta has to offer. Do you take all your dates deep, deep into the woods? Because that is kind of weird.”  
  
“I’ve never — no.” Ronan takes a sharp turn, drives a small distance off road before stopping the car on a muddy patch of grass. “I’m not very creative, I guess. All the places I could come up with were so boring. This just seemed a little more special.”  
  
Adam tries his hardest not to freak out about being taken somewhere Ronan deems special as he steps out of the car. He thinks, this is how a date is supposed to go; the nervous flutter in the pit of his stomach, the way he can’t quite get his words out right, how he can spot Ronan sometimes stealing a glance at him when he thinks Adam is not looking. He just hopes they can keep this momentum going.  
  
“Another viewpoint?” He asks as they, once again, start to walk deeper into the forest.  
  
Ronan loosens his grip on the thin branch he was holding so it hits Adam square in the chest. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic.” He says.  
  
“I won’t.” Adam just about manages to not step into a puddle of water trying to keep up with Ronan. “Just know that I also like museums.”  
  
“That’s really interesting information, Adam.” Ronan answers but he’s smiling when he says it and really, Adam is distracted by the way his own name sounds coming out of Ronan’s mouth to worry about it anyway.  
  
They end up on a viewpoint that’s even more spectacular than the last one had been, a broad patch of grass that looks out over the town, the light just so that it looks like a scene from a movie or an indie music video. Adam sighs deeply and not for the first time, he thinks that really, it’s not so bad to live here, in a place like this where you can drive into the mountains and get away of it all and where second chances still exists.   
  
He shrugs his jacket off, puts it on the ground and sits down on top of it, motioning for Ronan to do the same. It’s pretty cold up here in the mountains but when Ronan sits next to him and reaches into his backpack to get out some donuts and lemonade, Adam doesn’t mind so much.  
  
“So, do you want to work at the coffeeshop forever or what?”  
  
“Uh, well, it’s not my life’s ambition if that’s what you mean. I’m trying to save up for college but um, living on my own makes it pretty hard to save up.”  
  
“Why don’t you live with your parents anymore?”  
  
“You know, stuff happened.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
Adam takes a bite of his donut. “So, um, I’m glad you asked me out again. Or not, again, really. I’m glad you asked me out.”  
  
“Yeah.” Ronan says. “Gansey’s just… Gansey. He can never let things run their course.”  
  
“And you can?”  
  
“I’m a pro at not meddling. I’m not very good at dating, though.” Ronan leans back on his arms, his brow furrowed and the hem of his white shirt hitching up to show just the tiniest bit of skin. “Gansey says I just need to try harder but it’s not that I don’t try. It’s just that it all seems so meaningless.”  
  
“That’s a great thing to say to the guy you’re on a date with.”  
  
Ronan grins; a slow and dangerous thing that makes Adam’s heart feel like it’s trying to beat its way out of his throat. “That’s not what I mean. I just — don’t really enjoy the process of going on a date, I guess, and you know, dating and stuff. All those weird fucking rules people have created for themselves. Waiting thirty minutes to text back, saying you’ve got other plans when someone asks you out — all these weird games people play to pretend they’re so cool just seems like such bullshit to me.”   
  
“Do you even own a phone?”  
  
“Yeah. It’s just never on.”  
  
“So instead of waiting thirty minutes to text someone back, you just never answer.”  
  
That makes Ronan smile, a real smile this time, wide and beautiful. “Fucking right.”  
  
Adam nods, thinking that when you forget about the swearing, Ronan is actually saying quite profound things and he’s enjoying it.  
  
“I mean, when you know you know, right? It’s either the one, you know, the person who can puke on you without you really minding all that much or it’s not. I don’t get why so many people insist on making it so complicated.”  
  
Adam leans forward to flick a leaf away from his shoe, his arms brushing against the exposed skin of Ronan’s hip. He can feel his cheeks heating up and hopes, suddenly fiercely, that this is something Ronan finds charming.   
  
“Do I, um, seem like someone who could puke on you without you caring?”  
  
Ronan sits up then, his whole left side pressing into Adam’s right side and it takes a while but in the end, he bumps his shoulder against Adam’s shoulder and says, “Maybe you do.”  
  
A nervous flutter makes its way from Adam’s toes all the way up to his stomach and he knows it’s going to happen even before it happens. He leans forward and Ronan leans forward and then their mouths are pressed against each other and all Adam can think is, I’m kissing a boy, I’m kissing a boy, I’m kissing a boy and it’s Ronan, it’s Ronan, it’s Ronan. Their noses bumps against each other and then their teeth too but it’s fine, it’s great.  
  
He leans back, smiles at Ronan and Ronan smiles back, a little shyly.   
  
“That wasn’t bad.” Adam says.  
  
Ronan bumps his shoulder with his fist. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic.”   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
A few weeks later, Adam, Ronan, Blue, Noah and Gansey are all seated around a table in the coffeeshop. Ronan is leaning heavily against Adam and his solid presence is exactly what Adam needs after a long day of work. He’s only half-listening to what Gansey’s prattling on about, too busy enjoying them being all together and having a day off tomorrow. He thinks it is definitely time for a hair mask.  
  
Blue leans forward on the table, her hand a fist underneath her chin. “Wait. Wait.” She says. “But _what_ exactly are ley lines?”  
  
This makes Gansey smile; a secret smile as he glances at Ronan. He takes out a notebook from his coat pocket and leans forward. “Well, how much do you know about Welsh kings?”

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this in august so this went from being set in autumn to being set in winter and now being set in spring which is way too long to work on something that takes place mostly in a coffeeshop. title is from when you fall in love by andrew ripp. hope you enjoyed!


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